In this episode, we discuss the differences between organizational culture and climate, emphasizing that culture is the identity and values of an organization, while climate is the personal experience of its members. They highlight that climate influences employee engagement, trust, morale, and effectiveness. Joi explains that climate is relative and can vary across departments and individuals, affecting day-to-day experiences. Amy notes that leadership and employees perceive the organization differently, often leading to miscommunication. They stress the importance of climate surveys to gather accurate feedback and improve the work environment, separate from morale, which is the emotional pulse of the organization.

Joi Patterson 0:05

Culture is who we are, and climate is how people experience who we are.

Amy Vujaklija 0:16

Teaching and leading are rewarding but complex,

Joi Patterson 0:20

and whether you're in a classroom or a campus, new challenges are always emerging.

Amy Vujaklija 0:26

I'm Amy Vujaklija

Joi Patterson 0:28

I'm Joi Patterson.

Amy Vujaklija 0:30

And this is Teaching and Leading,

Joi Patterson 0:32

where we explore teaching, leadership, equity, and the systems that shape education,

Amy Vujaklija 0:39

and how educators can grow, explore, and have a meaningful impact

Joi Patterson 0:44

as teachers

Amy Vujaklija 0:45

and leaders. So let's get into it. Say good morning, Dr. Joi.

Joi Patterson 0:53

Good morning, Dr. Amy.

Amy Vujaklija 0:56

How are you?

Joi Patterson 0:57

I'm great. I'm great. I'm happy to see you. Happy to have this conversation. I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Oh

Amy Vujaklija 1:05

well, great. We want to talk about climate versus culture. You know why they matter more than ever before, and we know you and I know every organization has a culture. It might be a positive culture, which is fantastic, but it could also be a negative culture. But even a positive or negative culture, not everyone experiences it the same way. There could be individuals who experience a positive culture differently or perceive it differently. So, we want to explore the distinction between organizational culture, what that organizational culture versus climate look like, why they matter, how they influence employee engagement. What about the trust? What about morale? And we're about effectiveness too. That's the important piece we need to take away as well. So let's start Joi with. what's the difference between climate and culture? They often use these terms interchangeably, but are they really the same thing?

Joi Patterson 2:33

Oh no, they're not the same. So this is a great question as we get started down this road. So they are closely related. They can impact each other, but they're not the same thing. So I kind of like to think about it this way: culture is who we are, and climate is how people experience who we are. So culture is built over time. It's our mission, it's our vision, it's our traditions, our core, you know, our core values, our norms, and the behaviors that you see. You know, it's even the behaviors that we reward or things that we don't reward. It reflects our organization's identity, and just keep in mind when someone says, "Have you ever been on an interview search team? Yes, you have, and they say, "Well, tell me what you like about Governor State. Tell me about Governor State. You tell them about the culture, is what you're explaining to them, but climate, on the other hand, is much more personal, and that's a whole different conversation. That's not like the public conversation. It's the day day experience of the students, maybe employees, wherever you work, you know, because your if your customer base, your customers they really see the culture. They don't necessarily see the climate. The climate is much more personal for those people who belong, and it's also relative. One of the things you said, you said positive, negative. Well, the culture is what it is, but the climate is relative. So there's all levels of climate which can be negative, positive, and it's how people perceive things, how they perceive our leadership, communication, inclusion, collaboration, trust, support-you know-in other words, climate answers the question: What does it feel like to work here? What does it feel like to learn here? Okay, so I want to bring. Something else we didn't talk about, but it creates a lot of confusion, and I'm sure you've heard this before. Oh, morale is down. So where does morale fit in this, right? Morale and climate are very similar, but morale is the emotional pulse of the organization. It's how people feel at a particular time. Morale can either rise after a celebration. You know, you have your accreditation, and you know it's all of this. So morale is high, right? That's not your climate, though, morale can be very specific to a particular time or situation. Morale may decline if there's layoffs, if there's organizational change, if there's uncertainty, but it's not your culture, right? So it's not who you are, and it's not your climate because your climate gets into your policies and your procedures and your communication and how you all do things. It's really, really your more quickly, your quick feeling of how I'm feeling in the moment, and it can change overnight.

Amy Vujaklija 6:24

You bring up a lot of good points. So, to recap this piece, culture is what you see from the outside looking in. Could be explained in that way. Just the down and dirty.

Joi Patterson 6:37

Yep. Yep. The

Amy Vujaklija 6:38

quick and easy climate is that. inside you're inside this bubble and you are feeling a certain way. It's the climate. It's what you're experiencing, and then morale is that pulse. It's like how you're feeling about that environment, that climate.

Joi Patterson 7:00

Absolutely, and so they can all be at different levels, right? At any particular time.

Amy Vujaklija 7:06

So let me ask this: If culture is who we are, why is it that organizations with great people can have poor climates?

Joi Patterson 7:18

That's a great question because people. often assume if they hire good people, everything else will take care of itself. Unfortunately, that's not always true. So, an organization can have incredibly talented, caring, committed employees, but still have poor climate if people don't feel heard, if they don't feel valued, trusted, or connected to the mission. Let's say that you are very, very committed to your work. You're very, very committed to research or whatever your commitment is. If that's not what the organization values, then you will think very differently of the climate, right? So climate is influenced by the everyday experience, how people are treated by their supervisor. That's always a big one that impacts climate. Whether communication is transparent, whether ideas are welcome, whether collaboration is encouraged, whether employees believe leadership follows through on its commitments, things like that. One more interesting thing about climate is there isn't just one climate within an organization, so one of the things that I often hear is that, oh, it's great in my department, right? But not as an organization. Also, employees are different, right? So you may experience the climate very differently than how I experience your relationship with the supervisor, and we can have the same supervisor may be very different. The supervisor could be including you in lots of things, and I feel ignored. And because I don't feel included, then I feel different about transparency and inclusion and belonging. So my feeling about the climate will be different, right? And so it works as an institution and across departments. But again, so one department again can have great trust, teamwork. While another one, you know, the expectations are unclear. And for those employees that work at the same place, the climate's going to be different.

Amy Vujaklija 9:51

I've been on several search committees just over the years. I've been at Gov State for 11 years, several. Search committees, and and sometimes in leadership search committees, you'll hear questions from committee members about, well, how will you maintain a positive leadership, or raise morale, or any number of variations of those kinds of questions. But my biggest question is about that raising morale that we're asking a leader to do. What makes anyone think that morale might be down? What about the perception? Talk about what we hear at the water cooler versus what you might see on an actual anonymous survey that you've distributed.

So I think is really important, and I know we'll get into surveys later on. But this is one of the I think the most fascinating thing aspect about climate work. Let's look at leadership, leadership, and employees also they look at the organization through very different lenses, right? Neither group is wrong, but because they experience the organization differently, they're going to see it differently. You tell me, oh, this person is the rudest person I've ever seen. You know this. You know they do blah blah blah blah. And I was like, oh, this person is completely nice to me all the time. They're always helpful, but it could be by position, right? Because when they encounter someone in a leadership position, they may act totally different towards you, and then how often does that leader even engage with that person that you may be engaging with every day? So they see things, they experience things very different. So executive leaders, you know, they're responsible for the entire institution. They're thinking about budgets, they're thinking about enrollment, they're thinking about compliance. You're thinking about accreditation. We're thinking about legislation, long-term strategies. You know, we think about student enrollment and retention daily here at Governor State University. So the perspective is naturally broader and is often future focus and not on the little minute day to day things. You know, employees experience the organization more locally. Their climate is often shaped by their immediate supervisor, their department. You know, your department chair, their colleagues, their day-to-day work environment, the person that you're supervising that's driving you crazy. You know, for many people, the manager is their organization and their experience, and so we know all managers are different, and how you engage with those managers are different, so it's entirely possible for senior leadership to believe communication is improving because they've increased campus updates. We have town halls, we have our inside newsletter, and you know we feel like we're doing all these things, and we submit the climate survey to everyone. We have forums, and employees can still feel like I'm not being heard. There's not enough communication. Only within my department is there communication. But also, there's some things that go out that employees are not interested in, so they don't pay attention to it, so they aren't aware. So to them, it didn't get communicated, right? And also because maybe the answer wasn't what you wanted it to be, right? And in a climate survey, the questions are very different than morale, and so that's how you tease that out. In a climate survey, these can be so valuable because they help us move beyond assumptions, and you get everyone's perspective, and it doesn't ask the day-to-day question that leads you to responding about morale. It really talks about the climate. So some people are surprised. Morale is low. How could that climate survey result be so high, right? It's because these are different questions, and how I ask you the question, you're going to give me a different response. Your horrible day yesterday, and your feeling about is this the place you want to retire from, are totally different, right?

Exactly. They they really are because we can all have dips, and we all have those high moments. Overall, is that culture where you want to be? Is that climate? What you're feeling and that morale-that is so interesting to try to tease that out, especially in a survey, which we will talk about in the future future episodes. What would be a takeaway that you want listeners to get from this information from climate, culture, morale. I would say a big takeaway

I think is what we did in the beginning of defining the three. So when we're talking about it, that we're really understanding: Are we talking about culture? Are we talking about climate? Are we talking about morale? Because we would approach that very differently, and we always want to improve all three, right? But those are different approaches and how we do that. So number one, I would say defining those areas is really important. Number two. I would say being able to digest the information. You never want to collect information that you can't do anything with, right? Of being able to take the information, analyze it, digest it, and then determine what does it mean for me. For me, in my position, I use the results of the climate survey as my blueprint and say these are all the things that are working well that we want to continue doing. These are all the things that need work, and what are the things that we can put in place to continuously improve? And that's all you can do is continuously improve. And so notice it: climate, culture, morale. None of that has to do with pay, right? And so you could still you could have a very healthy, and that's what we're aiming for, right? We're aiming for a healthy, conducive work environment where employees can thrive, and if you're a university or P12, where students can thrive, you know. So where the people that you serve can really thrive in that organization is really what you want, and you need the people who are experiencing it to tell you. Because, like I said, leadership cannot tell you that because they see it through very very different lens, you know. If you spend four hours cooking meatloaf and it still tastes bad, you know, you just know that you put your heart and soul and money and four hours into this meatloaf. If it tastes bad, you really need somebody to tell you.

That is so fascinating, and you know, perception can be that evil twin that really shapes and moves us to think things that really are not there. But one person's perception is that person's reality, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the reality for everyone.

Absolutely, and I can't wait until we dig into this even further. This is such an exciting topic for me again because it can be so valuable as a blueprint.

Well, I've enjoyed this conversation, and I look forward to the next one.

All right.

Thanks for listening to Teaching and Leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi.

This podcast is supported by Governor State University.

Show notes and resources for this episode are available at govst.edu/teachingandleadingpodcast.

Until next time,

keep growing

as teachers

and leaders.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai